


Evening Star, Morning Star

by zelda_zee



Series: Star 'Verse [3]
Category: Lost
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, World Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-05
Updated: 2014-08-05
Packaged: 2018-02-11 20:24:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2081919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zelda_zee/pseuds/zelda_zee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>More travels.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Evening Star, Morning Star

Jack was the one plagued by wanderlust. He thought maybe Sawyer would be content to stay in one place, settle in like he had in LA. Home, routine, stability – all things Sawyer had never had, things he might want but be unwilling to voice. Jack thought he ought to be able to give those things to Sawyer, he ought to be willing to make that concession – but he wasn’t. Not yet.

Sawyer didn’t complain, he just smiled ruefully when Jack pulled out the maps after they’d been on Crete for a few weeks.

“How about Turkey next?” Jack suggested. He looked up after a few minutes of silence and he didn’t know if he was pleased or dismayed that Sawyer had already half-filled his duffel, and the closet was standing empty.

“Turkey, it is,” Sawyer replied. Jack searched for a hint of weariness or resignation or boredom in Sawyer’s face and didn’t find it. He could have asked, but Sawyer would never have told him. So he took it on trust, as he took so many things when it came to Sawyer.

*

They were at Ephesus, wandering through the ruins, and it was a burning hot day. It was September, but summer wasn’t ready to let go of this part of the world yet. Sawyer had the guidebook open and was telling Jack about the history of the site, when he stopped and looked at Jack and asked out of the blue, “You’re not sick of this yet, are you, Jack?”

Jack frowned at him, confused. He tended to zone out sometimes when Sawyer was reading to him, hearing the cadence of his voice and not the words, but Sawyer had hardly even begun and Jack had been listening attentively. Sawyer looked worried though, at least from what Jack could tell. Sawyer’s eyes were safely hidden behind his sunglasses, but Jack could see the tightness at the corners of his mouth, a minute signal to Sawyer's mood, one of many such signals that Jack had grown fluent in over the years. Jack figured it was a safe bet that the question concerned more than whether he was interested in listening to a lengthy recounting of the Peloponnesian War.

“Nooo,” Jack said cautiously, a safe enough response, since he couldn’t think of anything he was getting sick of, unless it was the inability to touch Sawyer in public that went along with traveling in Muslim countries.

“Of being on the road,” Sawyer explained, clearly sensing that Jack wasn’t on the same page as he. “You know, on the move. In each other’s pockets all the time.”

Ah. So that was it. The same old thing. Jack wondered if a day would ever come when Sawyer would believe that Jack wasn’t going to wake up some morning and decide it was over and that what he really wanted was some picture-perfect fantasy life with a wife and kids and a dog and a white picket fence. Jack had had that once, or close enough to know it wouldn’t work for him. Not then, and definitely not now.

Jack was silent for a moment. The back of his hand brushed Sawyer’s, once by accident and a second time on purpose. He encircled Sawyer’s wrist with his fingers, drew him gently to a stop and turned him so they faced each other. Jack took off his own sunglasses, had to squint his eyes nearly shut until he could stand the brightness of the mid-morning sun reflected off white stone.

“No. No, Sawyer. I’m not sick of this.” He couldn’t see Sawyer’s eyes at all behind his sunglasses. It didn’t matter. Jack didn’t need to see to know what was going on in Sawyer’s head. If he could, he’d take him in his arms, kiss his doubts away, lay him down and make him forget they ever even crossed his mind – at least, until next time.

But he couldn’t, here in this public place, couldn’t even put his arms around Sawyer and hold him, surrounded as they were by tourists and guards. So he just squeezed his hand tightly around Sawyer’s wrist, gave it a little shake, counting on Sawyer to understand. _I want you here_ , the gesture said. _I’m not letting you go_.

Sawyer nodded once, jerkily, and cleared his throat, and they walked on.

“Are you?” Jack asked. “Sick of it?”

“Nah. I’m not ready to settle down yet. Not even close. But I guess –” He shrugged. “I guess I might be, someday.”

Jack hadn’t thought about what would happen when it came to an end. There was so much to see, so many places to go, such a lot of world to cover. Being stuck on that tiny island had made Jack claustrophobic, distrustful of anything that felt like containment. Thinking that he’d be in one place for the rest of his life had made him shy of permanence.

Jack had a home; it resided in the man standing beside him. He didn’t need to settle down.

“Someday,” Jack said, as they continued walking. Their hands brushed again and Sawyer’s skin was warm – warmer than the sweltering air. “Of course we’ll settle down, someday.”

*

It wasn’t easy, traveling in places where they couldn’t touch each other outside of their hotel room. The surreptitious trailing of fingertips on forearm, the random bump of knees and shoulders, the occasional press of Sawyer’s body against Jack's back in a crowded market took on new significance. Every little bit of contact sparked against Jack’s skin, sent a pulse of electricity along his nerves. The necessity of denial filled him with need. It was the same for Sawyer. When they closed the door of their hotel room behind them at the end of the day, they fell on each other, impatient and aching, and it was like it had been at the beginning, fast and rough, both of them too worked up to take it slow.

“Maybe Egypt next?” Jack asked.

They were lying in bed, the sheet pushed down to the foot, pillows spilled over onto the floor. The window was open, the cool night air wafting over their bare skin like a caress. Sawyer was on his stomach, legs spread, sweat drying on his skin and Jack was slowly tracing the inked stars on the small of his back with his fingertips, still a bit breathless.

“Sure.” Sawyer’s voice was roughened with sex, and just hearing it made a little flare of heat flicker low in Jack’s belly. “Whatever you want.”

“What do _you_ want?” Jack leaned down and kissed the sharp curve of Sawyer’s shoulder blade, licked a line along the ridge of it, tasting salt and heat.

“Mmmm,” Sawyer sighed contentedly, rolled toward Jack. His eyes were heavy, almost drugged-looking, his face still flushed, hair plastered in dark streaks to his forehead. Jack touched his face, brushed his thumb along his cheekbone, over his lips, and wanted him all over again. “You know, I’ve always thought it’d really be something to sail down the Nile.”

So they chartered a felucca and sailed down the Nile. The air held the scent of earth and vegetation and fresh water and the dry heat of the desert that stretched out in the distance to either side of the river. Their boat was small and plain, crewed by an older couple who didn’t much care what nonsense their rich Americans clients got up to. It was a relief to be able to kiss, to put their arms around each other whenever they wanted. Sawyer’s touch grounded Jack. Even more than their peripatetic life, it kept Jack centered and sane.

On deck there was a breeze from the river, but in their cabin the air was still and close, despite the open portholes. The small space held the heat of the day, never really cooling off enough at night. They slept on deck, but they spent hours in the cabin, their sweat soaking into the sheets. It was too hot to touch, but that didn’t stop them. Jack needed the feel of Sawyer’s skin against his, hotter than the Egyptian desert, smooth and surprisingly soft and just as darkly golden as it had been on the island. He needed Sawyer’s voice in his ear, hoarse with desire as he whispered words that made Jack shake and moan. He needed Sawyer inside him, taking him, making him his – hard and desperate or slow and languorous – it didn’t matter, as long as he could feel it – all the things they did not say written in the patterns of touch on each other’s bodies.

Afterward, they went up on deck and flopped down on the padded mat that served as their bed. Sawyer was asleep almost immediately, his long hair fanned out across the pillow. His hand rested on Jack’s stomach, Jack's fingers moving restlessly over the back of it. Sawyer snored softly, the only sound other than the water lapping at the hull of the boat. Jack stared up at the sky, thought back to another star-filled sky, the sound of the sea in his ears and sand warm beneath his back; the only peace he'd had then due to Sawyer’s hand resting on his stomach, as it did now.

They woke early to see the pyramids. As soon as they arrived they were assaulted by the usual touts and hawkers, but the sellers weren’t used to dealing with a guy like Sawyer, who didn’t fall for their routine, wasn’t moved by their threats and wouldn’t hesitate to knock heads if he needed to. With Jack there to back him up it took all of five minutes before the hawkers decided to find easier marks. Sawyer just smirked at Jack and shook his head.

“You can’t con a con, right?” Jack nudged Sawyer’s shoulder as they made their way towards the giant structures.

“Well, you can,” Sawyer drawled, looking up at the Pyramid of Khufu. He winked at Jack. “It’s just usually more trouble than it’s worth.”

They toured the site, Sawyer thumbing through his latest dog-eared guidebook and reading the pertinent parts aloud to Jack. Jack wasn’t one for guidebooks. He left that to Sawyer, who’d hit the English language section of big city bookstores and stock up for wherever they were going next. If Sawyer couldn’t find guidebooks in English he’d spend an evening in an internet café and print out page after page of whatever he decided were the bare essentials that they needed to know in order to do a place justice.

Sawyer’s obsession with research was an endearing quirk and not one Jack would have predicted, though now that he knew about it, it made perfect sense. Sawyer always loved reading, had a thirst for knowledge, plus he was a control freak, perhaps to a lesser extent than Jack, but it was there nonetheless. Couldn’t not be, given the chaos of Sawyer’s life. And now their lives were, if not chaotic, at least unpredictable. The guidebooks were Sawyer’s way of keeping the illusion of control and Jack was happy to let him keep it. After all, without Sawyer’s insistence on being informed they’d get lost a lot more often than they did.

“I always thought these were built by slaves, but it turns out I was wrong.” Sawyer went into a long explication of the pyramid workers and how they were housed in special villages and the guilds they belonged to and how the limestone blocks that made up the pyramids were floated down the Nile from the quarries.

Jack listened with half his attention, mostly just letting the sound of Sawyer’s voice wash over him as they wandered slowly toward the pyramids. They had been on the road so long that Sawyer was starting to lose his accent. Or rather, his accent was changing, becoming an amalgam of the varied places that the two of them had made their temporary homes. If it continued, Jack thought, in time it would be impossible to tell from his accent where Sawyer was from. He thought Sawyer might not mind that. He had spent his entire life with people making assumptions about him the moment he opened his mouth. God knows, Jack had made assumptions. And some of them turned out to be correct, but some of them – a lot of them – turned out to be very wrong.

“Are you even listening to me?”

Jack looked at Sawyer, caught his exasperated expression. “You know, Jack, you’re turning into a real space-shot lately.” Sawyer lowered his eyebrows, giving Jack a mock-stern look. “I think it was all that hash back in Amsterdam. I should never have let you smoke so much of it. That stuff fried your brain.”

Jack just smiled, not caring to deny it. It wasn’t the fault of the hash, but it was true that he was less focused than he’d ever been. He liked it that way. He saw no reason to change.

“That’s why I need you to look after me,” Jack said. He leaned close, his eyes on Sawyer’s. They dropped to Sawyer’s lips, which curved into a crooked half-smile. It was only a couple of hours since they’d left their hotel room, but it was hard, so hard, not to be able to kiss him. _Muslim country_ , Jack reminded himself. _Unacceptable behavior._

Sawyer was looking at him and it was obvious that he knew just what Jack was thinking. The smile stretched a bit wider and a dimple appeared.

“I really want to kiss you,” Jack said. He was breathless - _breathless_ \- and they hadn’t even touched.

“I know,” said Sawyer, smug. “But you can’t.”

He moved away, sauntered down the path toward the Sphinx. Jack watched his broad back, the distinctive slope of his shoulders, his hair catching the gleam of the sun despite the fact that it was pulled back and hanging in a neat ponytail halfway down his back. Jack couldn’t take his eyes from the subtle sway of Sawyer’s hips, the curve of his butt beneath his jeans. He knew Sawyer knew he was watching.

Sometimes it amazed Jack, how much they still wanted each other. It wasn’t like it had been at the beginning, when it seemed like they’d explode from sheer, violent need and every moment they weren’t fucking was an endless, wasted eternity. But even now, years later, there was still a slow burn that smoldered deep in Jack’s body and it only took a touch or a word or a glance from Sawyer for it to spark into life.

When Jack caught up with him, Sawyer had the guidebook open to a page about the Sphinx. Suddenly Jack didn’t give a damn about the Sphinx or the pyramids or pharaohs or all the millennia of Egyptian history that surrounded them.

“Let’s go back to the boat,” Jack said.

Sawyer laughed. “Now?” He gestured at the pyramids. “We just got started.”

“I don’t care.” Jack grabbed Sawyer’s arm and pulled him to a stop. “Let’s go back. I want –” He couldn’t say what he wanted. What he wanted to say was _I want to make love to you right now, this very instant. I want to show you what you mean to me. I want to show you how badly I need you. How much I love you._ He couldn’t say that though, because Sawyer would only laugh at him.

Sawyer’s eyes sparkled. “What do you want, Jack?” he teased.

“I want to fuck you,” Jack said, feeling his stomach tighten as Sawyer’s eyes turned dark.

“Well, you’ll just have to wait, won’t you?” Sawyer said, but he wasn’t being glib anymore. His voice had gone quiet and husky. He swallowed hard, his eyes on Jack’s. “We’re here, and we’re damned well gonna see everything.” When he was a few steps away from Jack, he said over his shoulder, “ _Then_ we’ll go back to the boat and you can fuck me.”

It took hours to see the complex, and despite their early start it was evening before they returned to the boat. In the cabin Jack shoved Sawyer back against the door and finally let himself give in to the need to kiss him. Sawyer’s mouth opened on a groan and Jack’s tongue plunged in, and it was everything he’d been wanting and needing all day – warmth and welcome and delight. Sawyer pulled Jack against him, wrapped one leg around Jack's and rubbed his crotch over Jack's hipbone. He nipped at Jack's lips, sharp teeth stinging, and Jack took his head between his hands and held him still, kissed him deep and wide and wet, until everything fell away but Sawyer's mouth and the sound of his moans and his hands keeping Jack close.

Even if Jack could easily read Sawyer’s reactions, knew every inch of his body, all his expressions and the tones of his voice, familiarity hadn’t yet dulled the joy of it, the way they fit together with a hidden seamlessness that felt like nothing else Jack had ever experienced. Even now, he couldn’t kiss Sawyer without feeling like he was on the brink of discovering something new, something mysterious and unsuspected that could be communicated only through lips and tongues and teeth. Jack wanted to learn every secret of Sawyer’s, but he accepted that he never would. Sawyer needed his secrets; he’d never let Jack all the way in. Still, Jack knew he was in deeper than anyone had been before, and that had to be good enough.

Sometimes Sawyer told his secrets without meaning to. They slipped out at night when he dreamt, in murmurs and whispers and screams. He blurted things out during sex, things he never acknowledged having said, "Need you", "Just you, Jack, just you", "You’re mine", and Jack’s name, always, over and over. One time he gasped, "Oh god, Jack, I love you so much". Jack had never forgotten it, never would. It was, he thought, the most amazing moment of his life, despite the fact that afterward Sawyer rolled over and went to sleep without saying another word.

Jack tugged at Sawyer's zipper, shoved his hand into Sawyer’s fly and wrapped it around his cock, jerked him slow and tight, bringing him up easy. Sawyer moaned, voice hitching, and that sound, thick with arousal, made Jack tremble. Sawyer’s head fell back, thunked against the wooden door. His neck was a long arch of muscle, beautiful, irresistible, made to be licked and kissed and marked. Jack sucked hard and Sawyer whispered his name in a pained hiss, hips squirming and pressing forward.

Jack forced himself to let go. He took a step back and stripped off his shirt, his skin heating even more when Sawyer made a rumbling purr deep in his throat as his gaze settled on Jack’s chest, then dipped lower. Sawyer looked debauched already, eyes half-closed, lips swollen, his hard dick jutting out of his open fly. His hand moved over his belly, up under his shirt, his fingers skimming back and forth over a nipple. Then the other one went to his cock, stroking, and Jack sat down on the bed, mesmerized.

“Could come like this,” Sawyer panted, his eyes just glittering slits. “Wanna see me come like this?”

God, Jack did, because he knew how beautiful it would be, but he wanted to touch, needed to feel Sawyer’s skin against his. He shook his head slowly and held out his hand. Sawyer pushed off the wall, came to stand before him, let Jack push his pants and underwear down until he could step out of them, then he pulled off his shirt as he straddled Jack’s lap, his hair wild and his eyes intently focused on Jack's face.

They fucked like that, with Sawyer riding him and Jack fighting the urge to close his eyes as the pleasure welled up strong and sweet. His hands held tight to Sawyer’s hips, clutched at his thighs, and Sawyer smiled down at him, gorgeous and wicked, rocked and twisted and clenched around him until Jack was undone, helplessly gasping Sawyer’s name as he came. He was blinded for a moment, his vision whiting out into nothing and he begrudged even that, would trade that sightless ecstasy so as not to miss a second of this, Sawyer with his head back, riding hard and jacking himself until he spilled over Jack’s stomach.

*

At Luxor they went to see the Temples of Karnak. Sawyer spent what Jack considered an inordinate amount of time examining the city lists, recounting their significance to Jack from an extremely dry and thick tome on ancient Egypt he’d picked up in Cairo, while Jack nodded and made vague _hmm_ ing noises at what he hoped were appropriate intervals. What Jack really wanted to see was the Hypostyle Hall, but he didn’t mind waiting until Sawyer had had his fill of the carvings, simply enjoying the fact that Sawyer was so interested in them, even if Jack wasn’t quite sure why.

Jack thought maybe it was unwise to let his happiness be so dependent on another person, but it was too late for that now. He was far past the point of being able to do anything about it and even if he could have, he didn’t want to. For so long, any form of happiness had eluded him and maybe that was all that kept him from feeling guilty about having so much of it now.

Jack’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a throat clearing and he looked up to see Sawyer watching him fondly, shaking his head.

“I don’t know why I bother.” He pretended like he was going to toss the book he had been reading aloud from. “You know, I’m trying to educate you here.”

“Sorry,” Jack said.

“What the hell were you thinking about, anyway?”

Jack took a deep breath. “I was thinking about how happy I am,” he said. Then, tired of not saying the entirety of what he meant, “About how happy you make me.”

Sawyer’s eyes widened almost comically. “I – I don’t do nothin’,” and there it was - his accent had returned full force. These days Sawyer, who had spent his entire life on the grift, had the most obvious tell Jack had ever seen.

“Yes, you do,” Jack contradicted, “You do a lot. But even if you didn’t, it wouldn’t matter. Being with you makes me happy. I don’t need anything more than that.”

“Jack,” Sawyer said, voice low and strained, staring at his book. “C’mon.”

“What? It’s been _years_ , Sawyer. We should be able to say what we want to.”

Sawyer shrugged, still looking at his book. His hair was loose today, and it fell around his face, shielding him. One hand was shoved deep in the pocket of his old, frayed jeans, pulling the waistband low enough to show a thin strip of tanned skin beneath the hem of his faded t-shirt. He kicked his sandaled toe into the dirt a couple of times and for just a second he reminded Jack of a little boy.

“Don’t go gettin’ mushy on me, Doc,” Sawyer mumbled.

Jack hesitated, torn between pushing it and letting Sawyer keep his distance. But it was the “Doc” that made up his mind. Sawyer didn’t call him that anymore, not unless he was trying to tell Jack something. In the end, as he always did, Jack let it be.

“So, tell me again who these carving are of, the guys with their hands behind their backs?” he asked, and pretended he didn't notice Sawyer's quiet sigh of relief.

*

They were sitting in the courtyard of their hotel in Algiers, drinking sweet mint tea and watching black-bodied, red-headed lizards do push-ups where they clung to the white stucco walls. Sawyer had a book on African wildlife, told Jack that’s what they do when they breathe. It was an odd motion, strangely hypnotic to watch and between that and the quiet inside the courtyard and the soporific afternoon heat, Jack was feeling lazy and a little stupid.

The maps were spread out over the table and Sawyer was bent over them, glasses sliding down his nose, his hair tied in a Sayid-like knot at the back of his head.

“We’re gonna run out of places to see at some point,” Sawyer said. He didn’t sound too concerned.

Jack shifted a bit so he could see the map Sawyer was looking at. It was the biggest one, the one that showed the entire world. Sawyer’s fingers traced slowly over continents and coastlines. Jack leaned back in his chair, watching a lizard right behind Sawyer’s shoulder and wondered if they might be the kind that jump.

“That’ll take a while,” Jack said. “We still have all of Asia. And India. We’ve gotta see India.”

"Sure."

“And Antarctica. I want to go to Antarctica.”

“Mm-hm.” There was a pause. “I guess we’ll have to skip Australia.”

“I think we’d better.” Jack didn’t regret that. Sawyer couldn’t go back there and Jack had no desire to. After a moment’s silence, Jack suggested, “But maybe New Zealand?”

Sawyer made a little interested noise, murmured, “Lord of the Rings.”

Jack chuckled. “Yeah, okay. Add New Zealand to the list.”

Sawyer pulled out the map of North Africa, smoothed it out flat. He caught Jack’s eye, pointed to a spot on the map that Jack could tell was nowhere near their present location.

Jack leaned forward, had to squint to see what Sawyer was pointing at – and definitely did _not_ think that it was probably time for him to invest in a pair of reading glasses too.

 _Tombouctou_ , he read. He looked at Sawyer, eyebrows raised. “Yeah?”

Sawyer shrugged. “Why not?”

Jack stared at the map. Between themselves and Timbuktu there was a wide stretch of nothing that covered much of southern Algeria and all of northern Mali. Just desert – mile after mile after mile of it.

“It’s the middle of nowhere,” Jack said.

Sawyer smirked. “That’s kinda the point.”

*

In fact, there was much more than nothing in that wide, empty space on the map. There were settlements and nomad camps and oases, sandstorms and mirages, other caravans and veiled, regal men in indigo robes who rode out of the shimmering horizon on camels, daggers in their belts and rifles slung over their shoulders.

They were camped at an oasis a week into the trip, the men who were their guides and drivers conversing around a fire with the blue-robed nomads. Someone had an iPod and was playing Blondie, and Jack smiled to hear the faint strains of “Rapture”, incongruously comforting when so much here was unfamiliar.

Sawyer stood and walked away from the fire and Jack followed. They headed out into the desert, over a sandy rise and down the other side. The sound and light of the camp was blocked there and Jack could believe that they were utterly alone upon the earth, with the desert stretching before them lit by silver moonlight and the stars filling the vast arc of the sky.

“I think this's it,” Sawyer said.

“What?”

“The end of the world. That's what we’ve been searching for, isn't it? I think this is it.”

Jack stared out into the night, breathed deeply and couldn’t smell a thing, just the cool, clear desert air. He wriggled down into the warm sand, shifted until he could rest his head on Sawyer’s shoulder. Sawyer’s hand curled around his nape, fingers lightly stroking the sensitive skin behind Jack’s ear.

“Yeah,” Jack sighed. He closed his eyes, buried his face in Sawyer’s chest, inhaling. “This might be it.”

Sawyer’s lips touched the crown of his head, soft, the warm breath of a kiss.

“You ready to stop, Jack?” Sawyer murmured, and this time, for the first time, Jack didn’t hear any hidden question underneath the stated one. He raised his head and met Sawyer’s eyes.

“If you want to stop traveling and get a place somewhere, plant a garden and raise chickens or write the Great American Novel or start a cake decorating business or _whatever_ , I’ll be there with you.” Jack took a breath, waited for Sawyer to protest or interrupt, but he didn't, so Jack forged ahead. “If you want to travel for the rest of our lives, until we’re old and gray and can only get around with canes and walkers, that’s fine too. You’re my home now, Sawyer. Anywhere you are, that’s home for me. That’s all I need.”

For a long time, they said nothing, just looked at each other, until Sawyer finally looked away his eyes moving upward. Jack turned, still sprawled over Sawyer’s chest. Above them so many stars crowded the sky that there was barely room for the darkness of the night.

“I ain’t seen a sky like this since –”

“I know.”

“Oh!” they both cried at the same time, pointing to a streak of light traversing the sky.

“Did you see that?” Sawyer asked.

“Yeah.”

“Shootin’ star!” Sawyer’s arms wrapped around him tightly. He kissed Jack’s temple, whispered in his ear, “Make a wish, Jack.”

Jack couldn’t think of much to wish for. Not anymore. There was really only one thing he could think of, the only thing in this life that he really wanted.

 _Just this_ , he thought. _Please, until my dying day, just this_.


End file.
